Weekend in Malta
 

This is the latest of my trips to European capitals I hadn't been to before. Combined with trying out some new low cost travel options.

Step 1: Walk to local train station. It's about a 30 minute walk but the weather is fine. Cold but sunny. Since my plan is HBO and the destination is somewhere hot, I have eschewed a coat and gone for a T shirt and hoody but with a merino wool base layer. That will all pack down just fine and not hinder the rest of the trip. A few spots of rain started during the walk but I managed to get under cover before anything serious happened and "rained on my parade".

Step 2: The train I had booked on was cancelled. But luckily the train before it was delayed so arrived just about the same time mine was due. Some sort of problem with the overhead cables in Stockport (presumably frying some unfortunate long pig). The quiet carriage was not quiet so I ended up moving to a noisy carriage which was much less stressful.

Step 3: Arrive Euston and walk to St Pancras for the train to Gatwick. The St Pancras station platform to Gatwick is a 1970s carbuncle of the worst order, but the trains are regular and reasonably comfortable.

Step 4: Gatwick First Lounge. I really enjoyed this space. I couldn't get the online ordering to work so I asked for help. Apparently my "Duck Duck is the problem". Well, privacy belayed and wanting food I went from my usual Firefox browser (with DD search) to Chrome and then things worked a lot better (if slowly). Sitting in a Liberace style pink velour high back chair and eating mildly spiced thali can't be bad. The champagne was okay and on free pour, so that got some use. I am travelling in economy, so there is a need to pre-load to some degree. I hopped seats a couple of times until I was in the prime position in the corner with a view of the runway and the gates and spend a happy chunk of time watching all the take offs and landings including an Emirates A380 which absolutely dwarfed anything else nearby especially the turboprop from Guernsey.

Apparently BA do stock Club Soda, it's in a blue can!

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Step 5; En Avant. Bob humous meal was okay and a relatively pleasant flight even though theoretical seating didn't kick in. My companions in the row were a mother and daughter from Ireland so the conversation flowed, even though I was not involved. Not sure pre-ordering Bob is a great idea. It seems to be pretty unusual and I felt a bit singled out as a result.

Step 6: Arrival. Got off the plane, followed the signs for the bus, X4 was just finishing loading ready to depart, so tapped my First Direct card on the reader and next stop Valletta. Less than 5 minutes. Arrived in town and greeted by the Triton fountain.

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The accomodation was booked through Avios hotels which is just a wrapper for Expedia. Looking for something cheap I booked a room and it turns out to be something like an AirBnB. Not something I had ever done before. The comms with Avios hotels were attrocious and I ended up having to ring Malta before I travelled in order to get the details to be able to access the property. Everything worked fine in the end. I walked downhill from the Triton fountain to find my property and entered a code on a keyholder box to get the yale key to the property. It turns out that I have a whole house in downtown Valletta near the Sliema ferry. It was actually really nice to get in to the feel of the place, even though as I would see later, probably identical to the cells in which prisoners were held on the island (pic of the street where I stayed taken next morning). Safely ensconced I went for a bit of a wander, but soon returned for an early start next day.
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Step 7: No breakfast in bed here, if I don't cook it it doesn't happen. But google maps tells me there is a Spar supermarket a few yards away. It's an amazing place. If you were staying here self catering you wouldn't lack anything, but I'm only here for 48 hours so I got one of the excellent fresh breakfast pastries, an espresso and a can of fizzy wine. Went down to the docks to consume it all while looking at Fort Manoel and watching the locals float and fish.
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Walked round the bottom of the island and eventualy came to the 3 cities ferry to go over to Conspicua. I had intended just to go to the Inquisitors Palace, but there was a deal on where 3 Euros got you entry to all 3 main museums there, so I did that. Really nice. Did a lot of walking around and deliberately getting lost so I could see what everything was like. Valletta and Conspicua reminded me of Assasin's Creed, you really felt like you were on a film set for a Medeival adventure. The whole place was ridiculously photogencic. Lots of it has been rebuilt after the bombing in WWII but it still feels pretty genuine nontheless.
(Photo of pomegranete tree in the courtyard of the Inquisitors Palace)

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Step 8: A couple of stops through the day for a refreshing Aperol Spritz. Becoming increasingly aware that Malta is like a version of Italy where everyone speaks English. Although I'm not sure that the British are remembered over warmly here.Evening meal was in MUSA. It's a bit odd to be eating an evening meal in the middle of a museum, but it worked for me :) The food was good but expensive for what it was.
(My neighbour for dinner)

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Step 9: Since I'm not actually in a hotel, and I have a whole day before my 22:10 flight back to Gatwick, I stashed my bags with a shop near the Triton fountain for 3 Euros. As I was staying right next to the Sliema ferry I took a trip out there and back. Honestly don't bother. OK it's better than home but there's really nothing to recommend it, just shops and a few rocky shores where you can swim. Breakfasted on Aranchini which is pretty cool :) So back to Valletta and down to St Elmo's Fort at the tip. The museum was missable, but there were some pretty good views to be had and I think I would have regreted not visiting the site.
(View of Valletta from Sliema)

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Fort St Elmo

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Step 10: Wandered round the rest of Valletta and worked my way (slowly) up to the top where my bags were. Quite hungry by now and the Aperol Spritze on the way left me feeling more than sober.

So off the to airport. X4 bus from the bus station right there. A couple of tourists on their way to the airport, but mostly locals getting from A-B.

Step 11: Time for the lounge at Valletta. No. Denied. There is an electronic entry system to get airside and my boarding pass is too early! Asked the local gaurdian and he said 3 hours before. I chanced my arm a bit later at 3.5 hrs and got a nice friendly beep and a green light instead of the red light and frowny noise I got an hour before. I did get a chance to go to the landside observation platform which was worth a visit. Nice infographics along the way and a view over the runway. But you need to go past floor 2 where people actually work, so it does feel a little weird as the elevator is mostly used by real people not tourists. Eventually in the lounge. It's very nice for a 3rd party lounge. The outside bit is designed for smokers but probably better than the inside now the sun has gone down and a few whiffs of smoke isn't going to bother me as I smoked for over 25 years.
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Step 12: Back to Gatwick. I resented getting shunted down to the gate way too early. You could leave the lounge at T-30 no problem and avoid sitting around (even though there is a passport control booth to go through). Theoretical seating worked (hurray!) but aparently someone had thrown up on the middle seat anyway, so had to deal with that smell. (My seat mate kindly gave me a dose of their alcohol rub to help sanitise me). Hairways took me home and I dossed at the Gatwick Hilton as the return gets in at 1 am which is no time to be looking to journey further. Next morning I ate my entire daily calories at the breakfast buffet and returned home. Job done.

Summary: Really liked Malta. Probably my favourite of all the places I have been the past year.

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Very nice TR DeathSlam. :tu:

“Hairways” :D

Nice report, I felt out of breath by the end :D

I enjoyed reading your TR! Valletta looks beautiful, I should find some time to finally visit it.

Thanks, I enjoyed reading your Australian one as well :)
Sorry mine is not as extensive, but I rushed to get it done last night before I sadly had to start work again today.

A couple of additional pics...
There is a really dirty plane at Gatwick that you can see from the F lounge. No idea what the story is.
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Valletta reminded me of the game Marble Run. You will inevitably find yourself walking downhill from the upper city to the edge. If you are too pooped to walk back up again, all you need to do is roll around the side of the island until you get to this lift. It will happilly reload you back to the top for 1 Euro.

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There are a lot of boats in Valletta, almost certainly more than cars. And there is a lot of money floating about as well. This example was the largest of them. I know lots of folks on FT have a few bob, but I doubt many have a boat like this. Apparently worth $220m and is owned by Jan Koum one of the founders of WhatsApp.

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Visited Valletta last year, loved it. Took a bus out to Mdina one day, that was a good place to visit

Apparently, the aircraft is a McDonell-Douglas MD82 which was registered I-DAVA and owned by Itali airlines. When the airline suffered financial problems, it was impounded in 2010. Supposedly used at one time for pushback training but that might not been the case; was also supposed to be scrapped but that was back in 2015.

I knew someone on here would know :)
Thanks for that titbit.

Fun TR. I know Maltese people in sf who return every summer.

Good to see jkb76 managed to get himself a nice yacht

The circle of owners of similar yachts is probably small. But I would have something like this to offer:
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My nephew would know what to choose;)

Very good trip report. Valletta is indeed a very scenic place.

Would you look at that. An actual flyertalker. No wonder he has no more need to worry about how to renew SEN and get the best value of award miles :D

I freaking love Malta. It's too bad you didn't explore the rest of the main island and do the ferry across to Gozo.

A lot of history that pre-dates the British and the Knights of St John, especially around Mdina and the battlements you see around the island to protect from sea-faring attacks.

Glad you enjoyed your time, and the best pastries are the pastizzis for breakfast!

I did try some pea ones and liked them. A bit dry though.

Some of my favourites are curry beef and spinach & ricotta. Some even have ragu. There are some pastizzi cafes in my hometown since there is a huge Maltese diaspora in Australia.

I wonder where all the photos went?

I still see them.

Thanks. Yes, they seem to be back for me now as well. When I couldn't see them I could still see other people's photos on other TRs but investigating a little deeper it seems those people were using their own external photo hosting and posting via URL whereas mine just use the flyer talk direct image embedding. Perhaps there was a temporary glitch with that. Who knows.

Concerto also had some issues with photo upload, so it could indeed be a temporary internal issue.

I still have it. My motivation at the moment is around 0.

had the same with my last post. It took 2 hours and several attempts to upload all photos. Have no motivation to continue, too